Congressman to Introduce Antimarriage Constitutional Amendment

BY Trudy Ring

June 27 2013 1:44 PM ET

Conservative Republican congressman Tim Huelskamp is responding to the Supreme Court’s pro–marriage equality rulings by reviving an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

“This would trump the Supreme Court,” Huelskamp, a Tea Party favorite from Kansas, told The Huffington Post.

He said he plans to introduce the constitutional amendment, which if adopted would prevent any state from establishing marriage equality, this week. It would be similar to previous versions considered by Congress.

None of those previous versions has succeeded, however. To become law, a constitutional amendment needs to be approved by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate and then ratified by three quarters of the states. In 2006, the last time the House voted on the measure, it received 236 yes votes, short of the 290 needed to pass.

Of yesterday’s rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8, he said, “What did not happen is what the court and then the folks pushing for [DOMA repeal] hoped would happen: that it would end the debate. The debate is not over.”